CGI

Render Engine Tests

Years ago the differences between the various render engines was vast at times.  Today, the differences are more subtle.  However, I still view render engines as any tool.  Meaning, I want to make sure I’m using the best tool suited for whatever task I’m assigned.  With that in mind and with some new-ish hardware on hand it’s time (past time actually) for me to review the latest rendering software options I have here.

I need to know the strengths & weaknesses of these tools in order to know which one I should use for a project.  Reading reviews & comments from other users will give me an idea of these strengths & weaknesses.  However, I also like to run my own tests on my hardware and on my “typical” scenes.  Keep that in mind here.  My tests will be very specific to my work (mostly automotive).  Someone in arch-viz, game content creation, or VFX industries will likely have different needs & hurdles to overcome than I do.

With that in mind, here’s what I’m planning for my review(s).  I will be breaking this ongoing project down into three tests.

1. Automotive exterior hdr/backplate shot. I’m going to render it at 7k, 15k, and 30k resolution. Those size ranges cover most of my day to day work and will expose any issues the engines have with large resolution images or other aspects of this type workflow.  If the render engine has glow/glare/lut options I will take advantage of that directly. However, there will be no outside program post-processing because my focus is on using the built-in engine options only.
status: Currently underway.  Featured image is the test scene.

2. Automotive interior shot. I’ll use the same 7k/15k/30k resolution sequence for this series. It will be a night shot because they are more complex & taxing on the engine & hardware than a daylight shot.
status: Will begin after stage 1 is complete.

3. Animation (?).  I’m not sure what I’ll setup for this test at this time.
status: Planning.

Render engines I’ll be using:
Corona Render, VRay, Octane, FStorm.

Hardware:
Ryzen threadripper 1950x (Overclocked @ 3.9 GHz)
ASUS ROG STRIX x399 with  64GB RAM
2x GeForce GTX 1080 ti’s

Previous Post Next Post

12 Comments

  • Reply Hero August 21, 2019 at 7:09 pm

    You should try Cycles, integrated into Blender.

  • Reply cgi flythrough July 2, 2019 at 1:52 pm

    good post!!

  • Reply Senorpablo May 30, 2019 at 12:57 am

    Really looking forward to this. Thanks, Jeff.

  • Reply Rimas January 7, 2019 at 10:12 am

    Hey, Jeff!

    Been a while. Have you got anything? 🙂

  • Reply François Caffiaux December 13, 2018 at 10:33 am

    Hello Jeff,

    Did you find time to work on this project, can we have news?

  • Reply Mauricio Porras December 13, 2018 at 8:07 am

    Looking forward your results and conclusions, thanks Jeff

  • Reply Dominique FRATTALI November 5, 2018 at 12:59 am

    Octane can use out of core memory, maybe a solution for big resolution renders ? curious to see what solution you will find.

  • Reply lucas October 30, 2018 at 9:04 pm

    would it even be possible to render at 15/30k with as little as 11gb of memory available? (1080ti’s)

    • Reply Jeff October 30, 2018 at 9:38 pm

      Directly, I doubt it. The frame buffer for those resolutions is a problem in itself. Plus Win10 is eating 2gb of that right off the top of each GPU. We’ll see what kind of issues I run into with 11gb of memory and trying to use split renders, etc..

  • Reply Chux Onyene October 30, 2018 at 12:23 pm

    2 titans ?!, HA!, the clear winner will be FStorm…hehehe

  • Reply Juan Carlos Gutiérrez October 30, 2018 at 12:36 am

    You should try appleseed B)

    • Reply Jeff October 30, 2018 at 1:04 am

      Once I complete my tests using VRay/Corona/FStorm/Octane I will branch out to other engines as well.

    Leave a Reply